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| Illustration by Mark Satchwill |
Reality is a Crutch
By Katherine Tomlinson
Hugo was not happy with Mercador the Timeless. The wizard couldn’t seem to grasp the rules of the world; didn’t seem to care that science trumped magic in all but a few special cases. He kept interrupting the flow of the game by launching random blasts of magic at the non-playing characters, which was disrespectful and distracting.
But worse, he was annoying the regular park goers.
Hugo’s group met every weekend but they varied their venues so as not to wear out their welcome. This weekend they were at the parkon the corner of Laurel Canyon and Moorpark, staying to the eastern side, well away from the picnic benches and the people practicing their Tai Chi.
But Mercador couldn’t seem to keep inside the lines and was running around the park like a toddler on a sugar rush.
“This guy sucks,” Riff the Walker said, which told Hugo just how upset the other player was. Inside the game, Cyrus always stayed in character, down to the last exclamation of surprise. (“Oh ho” was his favorite, mostly because it was a verbal palindrome. Cyrus was a geek that way.)
“He came with recommendations,” Hugo said, thinking that the first thing he’d do when he got home was talk to Wynton of the House Dumbarton, who had vouched for the new guy when he first approached Hugo in school about joining his LARP.
Mercador’s real name was Preston and he was fond of telling people it was a fine old Southern name, as if they hadn’t noticed his accent, or as if—in a city of residents who were all born somewhere else—they’d actually care.
Wynton ran one of the most famous LARPS on the east coast, so it had surprised Hugo that Preston was such a freak.
Not that Hugo was a judgmental guy.
